Nikki Attree is an artist, photographer and author living and working in el Medano, Tenerife, Spain. She graduated with a degree in photography from the University of Westminster, London, worked as a freelance photographer in the UK before moving to Tenerife in 2007, where she began making sculpture and painting with acrylics on canvas. Check out her website nikkiattree.net
Along with her art work, Nikki also helps to promote the hardworking animal rescue centres in Tenerife, by producing calendars for them, and running social networking campaigns.
She has published two books, co-written with her husband, Richard, and inspired by her work with the dog refuges and owning a rescue dog herself: ‘Nobody’s Poodle’ (published in 2013) and ‘Somebody’s Doodle‘ (2016) – both are available as paperbacks and e-books from Amazon.
In 2022 she published another Book Dog Endz – A collection of wooftastic cartoons also available through amazon.
RICHARD ATTREE grew up in London in the 60’s and left home as soon as he could to study a variety of useless subjects (philosophy), and play keyboards in various unsuccessful bands. For the next 25 years he made his living (sometimes sporadically) as a composer of music for TV, working at the BBC’s renowned Radiophonic Workshop before going freelance with his own studio near Brighton.
Tiring of the stresses of freelance life he decided to retire, sell up, and “downshift” to a sunny, windy beach on The Reef (Tenerife). Despite working for most of his life as a musician, Richard has always hankered after the straightforward, direct communication of language when struggling with the complexities of producing electronic music or hauling tons of keyboards up several flights of stairs.
Retiring from the music business has given him the opportunity to get to grips with writing, as well as indulge in his other lifelong passion: windsurfing, which he and Nikki discovered together in the mid 80’s and which has intervened heavily in their lives since.
Richard has published three books: Nobody’s Poodle, a novella narrated by an abandoned dog (included in the Guardian’s Top 50 Readers’ recommended self-published authors); Somebody’s Doodle, a canine cozy mystery (highly commended in the 2020 Page Turner Awards); and Too Close to the Wind, a travel adventure, philosophical thriller, and the world’s first windsurfing novel.
Richard’s current novel, The Rhythm of Time, interweaves the stories of three musicians in 18th, 20th, and 23rd century London. Check out his website RichardAttree.com
Gizmo 5/5/2009 – 8/12/2022
GIZMO was abandoned on the mean streets of Tenerife when he was one year old, and spent some time in the Accion-del-Sol refuge, before being adopted by Nikki and Richard. The first step on his meteoric rise to stardom came when he took over the role of spokes-mutt for Nikki’s Blog: TenerifeDogs blog
One of his first tasks was to be the poster pooch for Accion-del-Sol’s educational program. This involved visiting local schools, telling the children about the plight of stray mutts in Tenerife, and teaching them how to look after their pets properly. Before you could say “wag a tail” he’d been signed up by Island Connections newspaper to be their intrepid news hound, doggedly sniffing out the breaking news and giving the pooch perspective in his regular column: ‘Life According to Gizmo (It’s a Dog’s Life)’.
After graduating with a diploma from the Star Agility class, he decided to share his story with a wider public by enlisting Nikki and Richard to ghost-write his first book: ‘Nobody’s Poodle’. He also appears in Somebody’s Doodle. Besides his many other accomplishments Gizmo is an expert in woofing, sniffing, digging, chasing cats, siestas, and looking cute.
Gizmo passed away on 8/12/2022 – Rest In Peace our beloved dog.
Fred, who we adopted from Tierra Blanca in Tenerife now has taken over from the late great Gizmo and you will find him woofing about the plight of abandoned dogs, books and art. You can join him on X or Bluesky
WoofTasticBooks 